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Blooded
He left the bar with a girl he didn’t know for the wildest night of his life.
A night that would never end.
Her gift to him was immortality. The gift came with a
A diet of human blood.
Forget capes, coffins, bats, wooden stakes and garlic. Follow a former real estate salesman on a journey that begins with his death and leads to an un-life of hunger, hunting and betrayal.
Chuck Dixon (author of the Kindle sensation zombie novel GOMERS) returns to horror to tell the story of a man who wakes up in a cheap motel room to find that his life is over and death is not the end.
“Chuck is a damn good writer who is really good at hooking you, giving you fun characters, and telling you one hell of an adventure story.” Larry Correia, Monster Hunters International, the Grimoir Chronicles
“Chuck Dixon’s prose is a perfect weld of muscular writing with razor edge wit and storytelling.”
Beau Smith, creator of Wynonna Earp
A night that would never end.
Her gift to him was immortality. The gift came with a
A diet of human blood.
Forget capes, coffins, bats, wooden stakes and garlic. Follow a former real estate salesman on a journey that begins with his death and leads to an un-life of hunger, hunting and betrayal.
Chuck Dixon (author of the Kindle sensation zombie novel GOMERS) returns to horror to tell the story of a man who wakes up in a cheap motel room to find that his life is over and death is not the end.
“Chuck is a damn good writer who is really good at hooking you, giving you fun characters, and telling you one hell of an adventure story.” Larry Correia, Monster Hunters International, the Grimoir Chronicles
“Chuck Dixon’s prose is a perfect weld of muscular writing with razor edge wit and storytelling.”
Beau Smith, creator of Wynonna Earp
- GenresHorror
178 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 19, 2017
10 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Chuck Dixon
3,430 books1,033 followersCharles "Chuck" Dixon is an American comic book writer, perhaps best-known for long runs on Batman titles in the 1990s.
His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.
In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.
His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million , Contagion , Legacy , Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.
He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin , Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl , as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey .
While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow , regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998.
In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.
On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."
His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.
In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.
His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million , Contagion , Legacy , Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.
He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin , Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl , as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey .
While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow , regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998.
In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.
On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 5, 2018
I was excited about a vampire novel with so many great reviews, with some claiming that this is a fresh new take on vampires...
Did we read the same book? Holy crap was this cliché drivel hard to get through, even for its short length. Lets take a look at all of the tropes I counted in the first few chapters before I stopped keeping track in frustration:
The "I met a strange person last night and tonight I woke up as a vampire!" trope.
The "Is (insert vampire lore) really true?" "Oh, don't be silly, that's just a myth!" trope. This one is otherwise known as "Lets dump some exposition in your lap to let you know the rules of our vampires.
Vampires don't bite, they cut people. Byzantium did it first, and better.
The beautiful vampire. Sure, Lugosi and Lee started this, but at least their vampires had more personality traits than just "Aren't I so beautiful?" (well, Lee just hissed a lot, but that is still about 50% more personality than is exhibited here).
Every vampire we meet we have to listen to their life story. "A hundred years ago I was..." yeah I don't care.
Besides all of the terrible clichés, this was just a book desperately in search of a plot. Near the end when it really started floundering and running out of steam it just turned into chapter after chapter of "I drank from his wrist"...."I drank from his wrist"....and on and on.
Did we read the same book? Holy crap was this cliché drivel hard to get through, even for its short length. Lets take a look at all of the tropes I counted in the first few chapters before I stopped keeping track in frustration:
The "I met a strange person last night and tonight I woke up as a vampire!" trope.
The "Is (insert vampire lore) really true?" "Oh, don't be silly, that's just a myth!" trope. This one is otherwise known as "Lets dump some exposition in your lap to let you know the rules of our vampires.
Vampires don't bite, they cut people. Byzantium did it first, and better.
The beautiful vampire. Sure, Lugosi and Lee started this, but at least their vampires had more personality traits than just "Aren't I so beautiful?" (well, Lee just hissed a lot, but that is still about 50% more personality than is exhibited here).
Every vampire we meet we have to listen to their life story. "A hundred years ago I was..." yeah I don't care.
Besides all of the terrible clichés, this was just a book desperately in search of a plot. Near the end when it really started floundering and running out of steam it just turned into chapter after chapter of "I drank from his wrist"...."I drank from his wrist"....and on and on.
February 26, 2023
Vampire Life
An interesting twist on a vampire story and how he lived his death. I am interested in seeing what happens next.
An interesting twist on a vampire story and how he lived his death. I am interested in seeing what happens next.
December 14, 2018
Why did this get 4 stars?? It was so boring and uninspired. Didn't hold my attention at all. Meh.
May 31, 2017
When it comes to vampires, there's nothing new under the sun.
Chuck Dixon pens a vampire novel. There's nothing really new here, but I was just happy they didn't glitter, or go to high school, or dress like goths.
A realtor gets drunk, picks up a strange woman, and becomes a vampire. It turns out the vampire life is a drag, one night leading to the next, just trying to survive.
This is the tonic for all the crap that's been layered onto the genre since the advent of Anne Rice. About time, too!
Chuck Dixon pens a vampire novel. There's nothing really new here, but I was just happy they didn't glitter, or go to high school, or dress like goths.
A realtor gets drunk, picks up a strange woman, and becomes a vampire. It turns out the vampire life is a drag, one night leading to the next, just trying to survive.
This is the tonic for all the crap that's been layered onto the genre since the advent of Anne Rice. About time, too!
June 4, 2018
It’s not surprising that Chuck Dixon, one of the grandmasters of in the realm of comics and a terrific writer of action/adventure novels like the LEVON CADE series and BAD TIMES series, is also a damn good horror novelist. In BLOODED, he gives us a fresh, modern take on the realm of vampires, done in Dixon’s gritty, razor-edged writing style. It’s told in the first person by a young man who wakes up in a cheap motel room and begins vomiting blood into the bathroom tub: “Bright red with black clots sliding down the walls of the tub toward the drain. I was dying. Right? On shaking legs I levered myself off of the side of the tub to get a better look at that cut on my neck. I didn’t get that far. Scrawled across the glass of the mirror were words spelled out in blood. My blood. WELCOME TO THE CLUB.” After that grabber of an opening, Dixon introduces the nameless protagonist and readers into a contemporary world of vampires that is far grittier and bloodier than Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. The nature of the novel, and its central character, evolve during the course of the story. It starts with a fascinating first-person description of what it’s like to become a vampire. Then it takes readers into a word of what are essentially violent vampire gangs. Then becomes a revenge story that has a satisfying ending and seems to be setting things up for a sequel. If so, I’m looking forward to it.
December 2, 2018
What would it be like to become a vampire in the modern world? A lot of this novel is treading somewhat familiar ground -- modern vampires -- and it starts out quickly with some very familiar tropes. The goth vampire girl, the changing of the rules (no you cannot turn into a bat). Yet at the same time, the approach Dixon takes is less about the Vampires themselves than the world they are living in.
How do you hunt for blood in a world with modern forensic medicine, cameras everywhere, and social media? The internet spreads every conspiracy theory imaginable to millions worldwide, how long would it take for someone to notice dead people with neck wounds drained of blood, sometimes grabbed by something invisible on camera? How do you survive in a world like ours, if you have no identity, money, and are presumed dead?
Since vampires are such a familiar aspect of modern culture, that much is assumed beyond a few subjective things (are realtors effectively invited into every home they show? Can motion sensors detect a vampire?). The rest is spent on the efforts to survive as a vampire and how vampires could possibly go unnoticed in the modern era.
And here, I think Dixon succeeds well in his intent while in the process telling a tale that is page turning and quick as one would expect from a man with the vast catalog of stories told in his life. This is a fast book, and it was a decent take on an old story.
How do you hunt for blood in a world with modern forensic medicine, cameras everywhere, and social media? The internet spreads every conspiracy theory imaginable to millions worldwide, how long would it take for someone to notice dead people with neck wounds drained of blood, sometimes grabbed by something invisible on camera? How do you survive in a world like ours, if you have no identity, money, and are presumed dead?
Since vampires are such a familiar aspect of modern culture, that much is assumed beyond a few subjective things (are realtors effectively invited into every home they show? Can motion sensors detect a vampire?). The rest is spent on the efforts to survive as a vampire and how vampires could possibly go unnoticed in the modern era.
And here, I think Dixon succeeds well in his intent while in the process telling a tale that is page turning and quick as one would expect from a man with the vast catalog of stories told in his life. This is a fast book, and it was a decent take on an old story.
February 21, 2019
1. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
2. I am not a fan of vampire books. Not my thing.
My Review:
This is a well written and fast paced book; with lots of twists and turns.
Mr. Dixon, who has experience writing about another nocturnal bat themed character, certainly created an entertaining exploration of the world of vampires.
Our protagonist wakes up to discover that he is a vampire. The story from that point forward is a wild rollercoaster ride of errors, mistakes and narrow escapes.
If you like vampire stories, you will like this one.
If you don't, try it anyways. The story of one man's life being torn apart and how he deals with it is entertaining.
2. I am not a fan of vampire books. Not my thing.
My Review:
This is a well written and fast paced book; with lots of twists and turns.
Mr. Dixon, who has experience writing about another nocturnal bat themed character, certainly created an entertaining exploration of the world of vampires.
Our protagonist wakes up to discover that he is a vampire. The story from that point forward is a wild rollercoaster ride of errors, mistakes and narrow escapes.
If you like vampire stories, you will like this one.
If you don't, try it anyways. The story of one man's life being torn apart and how he deals with it is entertaining.
June 13, 2018
Another smash from Chuck Dixon!
I haven't read any vampire fiction for a while now, but when I saw an ad for this book I had to jump at it. Chuck Dixon knows how to write, and he proves it again. He doesn't even need to prove it, but there it is.
Great book, highly recommended.
I haven't read any vampire fiction for a while now, but when I saw an ad for this book I had to jump at it. Chuck Dixon knows how to write, and he proves it again. He doesn't even need to prove it, but there it is.
Great book, highly recommended.
October 26, 2018
Good
This was actually a good read. I had mixed feelings about the main character. At first, I felt bad for him, but then a little annoyed. And though she was kind of a b****, I kind of liked Roxanne. Will there be a second book? I hope so!
This was actually a good read. I had mixed feelings about the main character. At first, I felt bad for him, but then a little annoyed. And though she was kind of a b****, I kind of liked Roxanne. Will there be a second book? I hope so!
August 5, 2019
Short, sharp, vicious
Blooded really took me by surprise. At first it read almost like a vampire procedural, but as the story progressed the main characters slow and steady slide into inhumanity too over the story. A quick, bloody read that is worth your time.
Blooded really took me by surprise. At first it read almost like a vampire procedural, but as the story progressed the main characters slow and steady slide into inhumanity too over the story. A quick, bloody read that is worth your time.
July 21, 2024
Nothing about this ever clicked. At points it seemed like it was going to go somewhere but it just never got better. Disappointing.
December 16, 2018
3.5 stars
This was a good half story.
Would've liked to have seen the story go farther.
Narration was well done.
Spoilers:
We end on a note sort of like Neo challenging the machines at the end of The Matrix, but Neo has proven himself to be powerful. What's-his-name hasn't proven himself to be terribly prepared to take on the vampire big leagues.
Update: A friend and I were discussing the story and he saw the ending more like the character giving a middle finger to the vampire big leagues and going out on his own terms. I could see that and like that interpretation a little more.
This was a good half story.
Would've liked to have seen the story go farther.
Narration was well done.
Spoilers:
We end on a note sort of like Neo challenging the machines at the end of The Matrix, but Neo has proven himself to be powerful. What's-his-name hasn't proven himself to be terribly prepared to take on the vampire big leagues.
Update: A friend and I were discussing the story and he saw the ending more like the character giving a middle finger to the vampire big leagues and going out on his own terms. I could see that and like that interpretation a little more.
January 23, 2018
Just finished this. It’s a quick read which starts fast and doesn’t slow. Unlike the modern vampire trope, this story shies away from the paranormal genre, resembling sci-fi/Urban Fantasy more than anything else.
I found the story relatable in its approach to life changes, including shifting relationships and how small decisions carry heavy consequences.
We’ve all been down at one point or another. This one is about climbing back out of the hole.
I found the story relatable in its approach to life changes, including shifting relationships and how small decisions carry heavy consequences.
We’ve all been down at one point or another. This one is about climbing back out of the hole.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews